


Hours After a Year

by girl_wonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:44:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hours that Dean survives after the crossroads demon takes his soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hours After a Year

Title: Hours After a Year  
Author: fryadvocate

Disclaimer: I own no one.

Summary: The hours that Dean survives after the crossroads demon takes his soul.

A/N: So many thanks to who beta'd this. Spoilers for the S2 finale.

She dealt out a Celtic cross, but the cards were unlike any he'd ever seen.

As she dealt, she named them.

"The demon. The brother. The crucifixion." She paused on the last and dealt out three more cards. "The stone heart. The raven. The Judas."

Her fingers flipped over the Judas, pressing it face down. "The message. The cat's eye. The bedroom." She paused on the last card, then flipped it over swiftly. "The massacre."

The room that they were staying in fluttered with wind, blowing old newspapers past them, blowing the stench of rotting corpses up two stories to their window. Flies circled en masse, the buzz louder than the day before.

"What does it mean?" Dean asked.

"The same thing it always means. Your brother follows."

Dean gathered their supplies as she collected the cards. They left the building almost exactly as they found it. The huge Devil's traps they'd burned into the walls couldn't be taken down.

*****

They went to a crossroads and she waited. Eventually, a small man ran up to her, begging. Her hounds tackled him to the ground, their claws dragging down his back. When he was within an inch of his life, they stopped.

She said, "You can have your life back if you give us all the money."

Dean had learned that she could grant anyone anything. But she could never make herself things. He stared off to where the hell hounds had disappeared and rubbed at his chest.

She slapped the man's wallet and checkbook into his other hand, holding it there until she was certain Dean had a grip on them.

"We're going," she said.

He nodded, vaguely. The whole situation confused him.

"Why do we need money?" His chest hurt, still. He held open the door to the Impala for her, watching her legs disappear inside.

When he started the car, pulled out and onto a strange black road, he remembered that he'd asked a question and repeated it.

"We're going into a city," she said.

Dean nodded and rubbed his chest where the rest of his soul should have been.

*****

The city that felt like it was on the edge of the world, on the brink of the end. The clubs that lined the streets pounded out music, deep pulses that he felt through his boots as they walked down a lit avenue.

She was wearing sunglasses and a hooded coat; pressed against his side, it was almost impossible to see her face. One of her wanted posters was getting soaked in the gutter, blurring her printed features. They passed two drugged-out teenagers, topless and painting each other in fluorescent colors. The skin blackened around the edges of the paint, toxins making them both laugh hysterically. Next to them, a lesser demon clapped her hands in joy.

"You look pained, Dean," she said.

"I ..." His gaze moved off. He looked at the wall full of her image, flyer after flyer of her face, REWARD written in bold letters underneath. She ignored the postings. Continuing down the street, they passed three of His Lord's guards, their uniforms white in the darkness. The whole city had an atmosphere of Carnival, men and women and demons together in chaotic movement, trying to find some connection in the night.

Wherever the guards moved they brought night with them and the city had long ago been claimed by martial law. There was a sickly-pale color to the three club kids who stumbled out of a club, their hands tangled in each other's clothing.

Dean guided her around them and headed towards the motel they were staying at. It was human-run, which was only slightly safer for her than a demon-run one. Humans didn't have to answer to His Lord, although they mostly did anyway. The television was still on when he let her back into the room. The Do Not Disturb sign still hung from the door, swaying lazily.

She pulled the curtains shut and he stripped off his shirt in front of the dresser mirror. Under his fingers, where he'd been rubbing, there was a dark bruise. He rubbed it again, even though he knew that he couldn't soothe the ache.

Behind him, she flickered on and off like someone was flipping a light switch. After the first two times, his response had become automatic; he pulled the cover off of the bed and tossed it over her, wrapping his arms around her. She kept solid under him and eventually he asked, "Ok?"

"Ok," she said, her voice muffled by fabric.

He released her abruptly and she struggled out of the blanket. Her hair was a mess and she shook it out, combing it back from her face with both hands. Dispassionately, he watched her, then reached out for her arm. The rune was broken, slashed in half by a long cut.

She healed the cut instantly and said, "Redraw it."

Dean shrugged. "Ok."

*****

After he watched two demons nearly kill each other to get to her, Dean said, "Why not hire one of them?"

"They'd sell me out as soon as His Lord said to." She shook her head. "You were the best. Now you're just the only one I know who won't give in."

"I've got hidden depths," Dean said. "I might be about to turn you in."

"You aren't stupid." She shook her head. "No exchanges or returns, Dean."

"His Lord could force it from you." But Dean rubbed at his chest and knew it wasn't true.

"I'm a daughter of Lilith. You think some son of Eve could ever force me to do something?" She pulled down her sunglasses a little and gazed out at the world with red eyes. He followed her gaze and wondered how everyone else could be so disinterested in the carnage of demons.

"I think that these days, a lot of your brothers and sisters are doing pole vaults when Sam says 'jump.'"

She smirked, lips full and amused. "His Lord," she corrected.

"His Lord," Dean said. "Where to next?"

The keys jangled noisily as he took them out of his pocket, shifting them from hand to hand. He stilled when she touched him, her hand warm on his shoulder.

She tucked one of her cards in his pocket, and said, "Surprise me."

He didn't check which one it was - Judas, Demon, Battle - because he knew that her vision of him was just as twisted as his own vision of himself.

*****

They went to L.A., which was still gloriously sunny, a Mecca for the people who had survived the darkness and come out on the other side.

She sipped her drink, a juice cocktail, and examined the people walking around them. Still in sunglasses, she'd exchanged the hood for a bikini and stood out only because of how well she was trying to fit in. The rest of humanity had a slightly paranoid look about them, turning their heads abruptly to stare at the people behind them.

Her shoulders were tanned and she smiled at him like it was love. He stared blankly at her and wondered what that felt like. It had to feel better than how he felt.

"You used to be better at this," she said.

"I used to like _Sesame Street_ ," Dean said. "I grew out of it."

Despite the heat, he wore a black shirt as he lay back in the lawn chair, eyes shut. Her fingers brushed the bruise. "You tired?"

He shrugged and her nails dug into his chest, hard enough to draw blood. He didn't bother to check; it wouldn't show through the black shirt.

She lay back in her chair and waved to the waiter for another drink.

"I'll miss the pier," she said. "I'll miss L.A."

"Smog and crowds," Dean said. "Paranoia."

She took the drink from the waiter and gave him an extravagant tip in Old World money. He made a face and flipped her off, ignoring her dazzling grin.

"It'll be gone soon," she said.

"Still won't miss it," Dean said.

Offering him a sip of her drink, she said, gently, "I've seen the world rebuild itself a thousand times. Sammy has nothing on Hitler."

Dean took her glass and threw it out into the crowd of people walking past. They ignored the shattered glass, stepping around it. No one even looked up to see where the drink had come from.

"His Lord isn't like Hitler." Dean shook his head and pulled on his leather jacket. He rubbed his arms and tucked his hands tight up against his ribs.

She pulled out one of his hands and laced their fingers together.

"His Lord is worse."

He brought her hand to his lips and bit the back of it, cruelly.

*****

They headed back east, which was dangerous, getting past the front lines, getting past the guarded border.

The moment that they entered into the night, Dean's skin felt cold, even through the layers of jacket and shirt and bruises. He looked over when she reached out for his hand, her fingers tight against his.

She breathed in and out and her fingers were slightly cold, like her body had trouble keeping her extremities warm. She seemed so real that he had to bite his tongue hard enough to draw blood just so that he wouldn't say, "It'll be ok."

It wasn't going to be ok.

Freeing his hand from hers, he flipped on the headlights and let the radio stay silent.

He had a beating heart, sometimes. She had a space inside her body where whoever she possessed had used to live.

*****

They stopped in an empty city, driving past the pyramids of dead, the rotting shrines to a benevolent lord.

He parked behind an old hotel, carefully closing all the windows to make sure that the flies couldn't get inside. Habitually, he checked the lock on the gas door, the hidden compartment in the trunk.

Then he said, "Get out."

She raised an eyebrow and picked up her suitcase, wheeling it to the back entrance of the building. Shaking the black spray paint, faint clicks coming from inside the can, he decided to switch it up, and scrawled a different rune on the ground before capping the can and tossing it into the backseat. The Impala rolled directly over the rune easily and he double-checked the locks before leaving the car behind.

The electricity wasn't working and he didn't bother asking if she expected it to in a city that had been extinguished so well.

If he'd asked, he knew she'd answer with one of her stories about her longevity and how she'd been around before electricity. If they were supposed to make him feel better, they never did.

*****

The sun hit the asphalt where she stood in the crossroads, waiting. He sat back in the shade of the Impala, his back against her hot paint.

"I miss Hitler," she said, idly. "All those crossroads. All those desperate people."

He tossed a rock across the desert dust and listened to screams in the distance.

"Even back when they used to stone them on sight, no one scared the Roma like Hitler." She sighed a little. "When they used to do crossroads magic, it was art."

The screaming grew closer and Dean didn't need to look left to know that someone was sprinting towards them, desperate and afraid.

"And they never went back on deals." He turned his head to stare at her legs, the tight leather against her skin. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "You know, you're in good company. Most of them bargained for family, too."

The woman who arrived was bloody and sobbing.

"You didn't keep any of them, though," Dean said.

"No," she agreed, and snapped her fingers, yanking the life out of the woman.

*****

They had sex in the Impala, her hands greedy and her mouth desperate.

Dean blinked when she pinched his nipple, and said, "Pay attention."

He'd been thinking about gasoline while his body acted on its own.

"I used to be more into this kind of thing," he said.

She put a hand on his chest and he felt it expand, his whole body ache with the force of his soul snapping back into himself. He pulled down on her hips and scraped his nails along her back with all the pain and blooming self-hatred he felt.

"Better," she said, her teeth blunt and brutal against his throat.

*****

She took it back, of course. She always did.

He didn't even bother looking at it this time.

The first time he'd seen the inky darkness, he'd wondered what the Yellow-Eyed Demon was doing in his chest before she explained that all souls looked like that.

"Humans," she said, dismissively. "You all think that the world revolves around you. Darkness is just another way of saying _complicated_."

With his back against the car door, he inhaled and exhaled helplessly. His heart still beat. He watched her play with it in her hands, like it was twine for a game of cat's cradle.

"I'm still alive," he said, distantly. "I'm still breathing."

"And you'll still be hungry and you'll still need to piss and you'll still sleep." She twirled it around her finger and he watched it disappear into her skin.

At the time, he'd thought that was a good thing.

Now, he leaned his face against the window, eyes hurting, arms hurting, body used.

She casually pulled his boxers back up for him, nudged him until he lifted his hips and she could slide his jeans back into place, careful with the zipper and button. Her hands were cool on his skin as she cleaned off his abs with a napkin and then pulled down his shirt.

"Heel, Dean," she said, buckling herself back into the passenger seat.

Dean turned on the Impala, dully thinking that they'd need an autoshop soon; there was something off in her sound. He didn't mention it, only would when the car broke down on the side of a road.

Something like joy bloomed in his chest when he thought about what she'd look like when he said, "I think the car needs a tune up."

He wasn't sure if it was real or not.

*****

"I want to go to the gladiator ring," she said. "A cockfight with humans, there's an idea."

He made a left at the interstate and said, "Didn't you see the originals?"

She sighed a little. "Yes. Rome. Lots of crossroads. Came with all those nice roads built for the legions."

Her fingers drummed on his thigh and he pinched the skin between her forefinger and her thumb until she yanked her hand away.

"You know sequels are never quite as good as the originals. Where do you want to go?" he asked again.

"I just said." Her voice was harsh, sudden and firm. "The games."

She gripped his thigh again, fingernails sharp, even through denim.

*****

"I own him," she said, pointing with her sunglasses to one of the gladiators.

The man was tall, broad across the shoulders, and scarred from the years of abuse. He snapped his opponent's neck with a hard twist.

"Yeah?" Dean shrugged, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. There were other humans there, but all in collars or leather, a bizarre throwback to fetish gear that he'd never get. They were all pets.

The next opponent stepped into the ring and didn't bother with the formal nod before smashing his hand into the champion's face. He immediately recoiled, cradling his hand against his chest. Dean felt a sudden, vicious sympathy.

He turned and threw up the popcorn.

"What the hell?" he choked.

Her hand was on his back in a mockery of soothing and it felt like someone was pulling yarn out of his chest. Where his hand gripped the bar, it felt almost numb with the pressure. His knees ached until he sank down onto the metal bleacher steps.

"That was my fault," she said, her hand rubbing slow circles. "Drink some of this."

He took her bottle of water, the metallic taste of a water container almost as strong as the bile in his mouth. He spit, took another drink.

"I've been trying to figure out the percentages."

"For what?" his voice was hoarse. The crowd around them screamed and he didn't need to look over his shoulder to know someone had won. The stair under his knees vibrated with their joy.

"Don't play dumb, Dean. It looks just as bad on you as it does on Sam."

He reached out for the chain link fence tied to the railing, his fingers threading through it. "My soul," he said.

"It's not that easy," she said. "Having one. It's a little bit of an art keeping you. You're my own little living dead boy."

"Great," Dean said. He sneered. "Feel free to wipe the canvas clean at any time."

"Don't be like that, Dean," she said.

He blinked, looked down at his own vomit, and couldn't even feel irritation.

Standing, he straightened his jacket. "Who won?"

"That's more like it."

She settled down in her seat, gesturing to the seat next to her. "Less is more."

"Whatever," Dean said.

*****

That night, as she lay on her back, smoking a slender, foreign cigarette in the darkness, she said, "You could have it back."

"What?" He watched the sidewalk in front of the building from their fifth story window, sniper rifle on hand.

Shortly, she blew out a mouthful of smoke and said, "Your soul. One time offer. I give it all back to you, one hundred percent, let you have it forever, and Sam drops dead."

He touched his chest and felt it burn with something.

"No," he said. "No."

"One time offer," she repeated, already lying. When he glanced over, he saw her lips speaking silent words around the smoke.

Firmly, he said, "No."

"Mention it if you change your mind," she said.

Her cigarette glowed red as she took a long drag.

*****

The rebel forces kept to where there was light, so they moved out of the darkness, squinting. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, Dean glanced over at her, hair curling messy at her throat.

"You want to have sex?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Would you have sex?"

"If you told me to." He put on the sunglasses she offered and headed further into the light.

Their contact was an old army sergeant who frisked them before handcuffing both of them and leading them into an abandoned factory.

In the old breakroom, a makeshift medical facility had been put together with what looked like saran wrap and rubbing alcohol. When a woman in what used to be a white coat walked in and perfunctorily put a stethoscope on his chest, he watched her face. She frowned, and looked up at him.

"Heart rate's a little slow." The doctor moved on to check on her.

It took the doctor a moment to realize that she had no heartbeat.

"Demon," she said, in explanation.

"You controlled by His Lord?" the doctor asked, even as the sergeant shifted unhappily at the door.

"No," she said.

The doctor looked at Dean and he shook his head. "She's got a tattoo."

"We can't trust that," the doctor said. "I'm going to go get Jim."

Jim was a tall man, almost as tall as Sam, with the harried look of competence about him.

"What intel did you have?"

She looked him up and down and said, "We know where His Lord is heading next."

Jim rolled his shoulders, a tired look in his eyes. "Everyone knows that. West."

Cracking her wrists and yanking off the cuffs with one swift motion, she said, "He's heading here."

They took two startled steps back, and the sergeant raised his gun, but she just held up her hands in mockery, palms out, runes drawn up her arm, black ink on white skin.

"Why the hell would he do that?"

Dean knew exactly why. His Lord was following them.

"You just want free passage?" Jim asked, his eyes cutting to Dean.

"Yes," she said.

"You have it," Jim said. He left with tired, old-man steps and Dean knew that if this was the best that the resistance had, it wouldn't last long.

Dean waited patiently as the sergeant unlocked his cuffs. "How do you know we're telling the truth?"

"We don't," the sergeant said. "But it's too risky to stay if you're telling the truth."

*****

She dealt out cards again halfway between the Night and the coast. Dean paced angrily, steps short and unhappy.

"How long are you going to play with me like this?" He could feel it now, the percentage of yes and the percentage of no. His soul ached when it was there, and the space ached when it wasn't.

"As long as it takes," she said.

She held out a card to him. The raven.

*****

They skirted one of the settlements, watching the campfires from afar. Night hung behind them to the west, and he watched it with a pair of binoculars.

She wrapped a hand around his ankle and said, "Do you miss him?"

Dean imagined driving the Impala with Sam in the passenger seat, his mouth open and eyes closed, snoring. They had one perfect year before it was time, three hundred and sixty-five days of hunting, back to back, just them against the world.

He saw it with a clear emotionless distinction.

"Sometimes," he said.

"Liar," she said, amused.

*****

Once, he saw Sam from a distance, as His Lord entered a city.

Sam looked terrible, dark bruises under his eyes, cheeks hollow, skin pale. All of the demons around them snapped to attention when they saw Sam, staring at him, with a reluctant sort of worship. They hated him, even as they bent to his will.

One thing that the yellow-eyed bastard had been good for, Dean decided, was making sure that Sam's powers were complete. Demons Dean hadn't even thought were real appeared and bowed to Sam.

Scales and wings and one girl with horns curving up out of her temples, a sea of them on one knee, jaws clenched. Dean saw one stand, resisting, screaming with the agony of it until he was cut down by one of the guard before he even reached Sam.

It was just one demon, though.

She got them out of the city before the first search party found them, seconds before His Lord ordered buildings burned.

*****

She gave him a beer to drink while he waited for her, little kid in a hot car. He cracked the window and lay back, his ring tapping hollow on the glass. Curious, he blew over the top of the bottle and was rewarded with a deeply vacant sound.

It had never occurred to him that the most beautiful sound was when nothing was inside a bottle - when it was used up.

*****

end


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